From The High Walls Westward
by Lena Liz Carter
Summary: A year has passed since the fall of Mount Weather. Murphy and Jaha are still missing and Clarke hasn't come back. Everybody thinks she is dead, but Bellamy Blake keeps waiting. Spoilers for Season 2 finale. Title taken from The Lament for Boromir. "Bellamy understands the need for space, so he gave the whole Ground and she got lost in it."


Even now, a year later, every morning and every evening he climbs on the watch tower and looks to the forest, like he still thinks she is going to emerge from the woods with a backpack over her shoulder, a smile in her eyes and a scolding for whatever they didn't do flawlessly.

At first he hadn't been alone. Octavia stood with him mostly because she didn't want him to be alone. Sometimes Raven joined him, or Monty, or Monroe, or even Kane. Abby, after she healed from her Mount Weather experience, was his most frequent companion and she lasted the longest, but even she gave up after six months of futile waiting.

Not Bellamy.

Octavia made Lincoln tell him about every danger out there and she made Wick calculate the odds of her survival. They are not good, but he believes that the girl, who survived a fall from space, a hemorrhagic fever, hallucinogenic drugs, a giant gorilla, an escape from Mount Weather, an assassination attempt, a missile and two wars, can survive anything.

Raven told him to stop waiting, that she will come on her own terms when she's ready (if she comes at all, but that remains unspoken). Bellamy understands the need for space, so he gave the whole Ground and she got lost in it.

Kane sent out search parties and everyone, who was not needed in the camp, was looking for her. Even Jasper, who never forgave them for Maya and never spoke to Bellamy when he didn't have to, went a couple of times. Monty said that even though Maya would always haunt him, Jasper didn't want her to die. They combed the woods and came home empty-handed.

Work piled up and eventually even Bellamy agreed that she could be anywhere and the only person who can find her, is herself.

He kept waiting for her, even when her own mother wouldn't.

"I have to let it go," Abby told him the last morning she stood with him on the watch tower. "I want her to come back more than anything, but I can't keep waiting for her. It's killing me."

He let Abby leave first so that she wouldn't have to look him in the eye. Ever since that he has been there alone. He wasn't angry or sad or desperate any more. He wasn't even hopeful. He was simply waiting.

The day she comes, he can't believe his eyes at first. It is early morning and she emerges from the sun and the mist like Queen Boudicca reborn, beautiful and dangerous.

He rushes to the gate so fast he almost sprains his ankle, but at that moment not even an army of Grounders would stop him. He runs across the clearing, stopping only a step or two in front of her, savoring every time the realization hits him. _She is alive. She came home. She is here._

For a horrible moment he fears that she is not real, that he has gone mad and she is only a figment of his imagination. But the way she shifts her weight to the other foot and looks down is too detailed to be a hallucination.

Her hair is shorter and braided in Grounder style, the same style her clothes are. She has a necklace of animal teeth and claws around her neck and wristbands made of snake skin. There is a scar across her forehead now and she is limping slightly, but there is a backpack over her shoulder and a smile in her eyes, and for Bellamy, that's enough.

What do you say after such a long time? _I Love You _is too much, but anything less is not enough. How do you tell a person that you wouldn't survive losing them again? How do you phrase it, when you are afraid that she will run away like a scared deer the moment you open your mouth?

"I arrived last night, but I was waiting till morning, to make sure nobody shoots me," she says awkwardly.

He just nods and feels like an idiot.

"You know what?" she mutters and doesn't dare to look him in the eye. "I would really like that drink now."

He gently lifts her chin with one finger to make her look at him. The shy smile looks weird on her warrior face, but Bellamy realizes that there is nothing to fret about. Being with her is the most natural thing in the world, easier than breathing. Her eyes wander to his lips and she nods slightly and that is all the encouragement he needs.

Just before he kisses her, he finds the perfect thing to say, the one thing that encompasses all the reasons why he has always stood on the watch tower, why he couldn't let her go, not even when everyone told him to give up. One word that means the world to him.

"Clarke."


End file.
